Calvin Coolidge

There is just one condition on which men can secure employment and a living, nourishing, profitable wages for whatever they contribute to the enterprise, be it labor or capital, and that condition is that some one make a profit by it.

We are coming to see that we are dependent upon commercial and industrial prosperity, not only for the creation of wealth, but for the solving of the great problem of the distribution of wealth.

We have established here a democracy on the principle that all men are created equal.

You men who represent our industries can see that there is the same right to disperse unlawful assembling of wealth or power that there is to disperse a mob that has met to lynch or riot.

Can any instrument of commerce or industry ever be too powerful to serve the public needs?

We need to keep forever in mind that guilt is personal; if there is to be punishment let it fall on the evil-doer, let us not condemn the instrument.

That is as sound as it would be to abolish writing to prevent forgery.

It was little wonder that such a misunderstanding arose that one part of the community thought the owners and managers of our great industries were robbers, or that they thought some of the people meant to confiscate all property.

It was little wonder that men came to think that prosperity was the chief end of man and grew arrogant in the use of its power.

A prosperity which not only built up great industries, great transportation systems, great banks and a great commerce, but a prosperity under whose influence arts and sciences, education and charity flourished most abundantly.

Along with this examination of our form of government has gone an examination of our social, industrial, and economic system.

We have debated again the theories of the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the Nation, and laid down the fundamental law of our own Commonwealth.

We have examined the foundations of our institutions of government.

During the past few years we have questioned the soundness of many principles that had for a long time been taken for granted.

This is the spirit that founded Massachusetts, the spirit that has seen your bank grow until it could now probably purchase all there was of property in the Commonwealth when it began its existence.

They had the self-reliance and the independence to prefer to do those things for themselves.

They did not want their commercial privileges interfered with by having the Government buy and sell for them.

They were the men who had fought a war to limit the power of government and enlarge the privileges of the individual.

They founded their government on the rights of the individual.

Let all our merchants, of whatever degree, assist in this work for the public good and let the individual see and feel that all his rights are protected by his Government.

Let us refrain from suspicion; let us refrain from all indiscriminate blame; but let us present at once to the proper authorities all facts and all evidence of unfair practices.

The American people are prepared to meet any reasonable burden; they are not asking for charity or favor; fair prices and fair profits they will gladly pay; but they demand information that they are fair, and an immediate reduction if they…

But we do claim the right and duty of the Government to investigate and punish any artificial creation of high prices by means of illegal monopolies or restraints of trade.

We do not deny the existence of economic laws, nor the right to profit by a change of conditions.

We must not confuse the innocent with the guilty; it must be our object to allay suspicion, not to create it.